On Febuary 28th, 2018 Microsoft published a blog article on its popular You had me at EHLO site (https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange) indicating the discontinuation of support for Session Border Controllers (SBCs) for customers using Exchange Unified Messaging (UM) with 3rd Party phone systems. This came as a surprise and created some uncomfortableness to many organizations relying on this solution.
The SBC to Exchange UM solution allowed companies with non-Skype for business solutions to leverage cloud based voicemail for their organizations in a supported manner in a time when many on premises legacy voicemail solutions were no longer available.
While the number of companies worldwide using this solution is not publically made available, the companies leveraging this solution generally had scenarios where this solution made a lot of sense for them both functionally and financially. There was some frustration at this announcement to say in the least given the date of support discontinuation was July of 2018.
A new post has been made on April 24th, 2018 updating the support statement in this regard. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2018/04/24/new-date-for-discontinuation-of-support-for-session-border-controllers-in-exchange-online-unified-messaging/
A new discontinuation date has been set for April 30th of 2019 which gives customers a year from today to implement a new solution. They have 3 options available to them. Microsoft lists them as:
- Office 365. We believe the best option for customers is to transition to the cloud and use Office 365. This would include the enterprise voice workload and Cloud Voicemail. Customers would use Microsoft Teams for collaboration and voice services.
- Skype for Business Server. In this configuration, customers would deploy an on-premises Skype for Business server and take advantage of the services for voicemail supported by the server.
- 3rd Party Voicemail System. With this approach, the customer acquires a 3rd party voicemail system that provides all the capabilities required to process voicemail and then place it in the user’s Exchange mailbox.
Missing from this list was the option previously indicated in the February post that indicated the use of 3rd party solutions that would allow for the continued use of Exchange UM. These solutions generally leveraged Skype for Business Server, an SBC and Exchange UM. Microsoft states that while these solutions may still work in the short term that they are not certified by Microsoft and may be impacted as the Microsoft voicemail ecosystem evolves.
If you are already using one of these 3rd Party Systems or are considering the use of them, I would strongly recommend working with your vendor to understand how you might be affected by this announcement.
In my opinion it would make sense to take this time to review the three options Microsoft has listed with emphasis on the first two options if your company already has an investment with Microsoft Office 365. Analyze your options and make a plan to move to a new solution. A year is not a lot of time for very large organizations that have complex requirements and are slow to change so start planning now!